Gaining Traction
by The Lonesome Rose
Summary: Their first battle with Loki brought them together, but there's more to their relationships than those than exist between them while in uniform. Here follows snapshots of the scientist, the demi-god, the billionaire, the legendary soldier and master assassins in that that traction-gaining period.


**Wii**

Natasha was a first-rate assassin and, quite frankly, she thought it rather unfair that Clint kept outdoing her in his collection of videogames. Right now she was eating his virtual dust in _Mario Kart Wii._

Tony wandered in, smirking. "You guys have no life"

"Yeah, coming from a loser like you?" Clint didn't look up from the final lap. "Least Tasha and I do normal things unlike whatever twisted experiments you and Bruce do down in the lab."

Tony laughed maniacally. "Braaaaains. We decided we want you in our experiments next. We were thinking we'll rewire your brain and make you actually think you're a hawk. Won't that be fun?"

Clint flopped onto his back and blew a raspberry at the billionaire.

Natasha groaned aloud. Last place. Again. "Play nice, boys. Wouldn't want to call in your mommy, would we, Stark?"

"Okay you know what? That's not fair. The way you always take his side on everything?" He glowered. "And if you say one more time that Steve's my mother, so help me…"

"I chose the track this time."

"Sure, Tasha. Unless…Tony wants to have a go with you." Clint held out the controller. "How 'bout it? C'mon, have a little fun."

"Fun? You want fun?" Tony wiggled his eyebrows. "Break out the rest of the controllers and let's get the rest of the team down here."

"Now you're talking."

Steve took to the game pretty rapidly and Thor boomed with laughter as he took more pleasure in using every chance to ram his partners off the road. Even Bruce's competitive side began to win out as he and Tony were neck-to-neck. All of them far behind Clint of course. Natasha eased back, more fascinated with watching the boys than wanting to win.

"Third is mine!" hooted Tony. "Eat my dust! Oh…hey!" he glared fiercely at the laughing Thor who had just knocked them both over a cliff.

"This game, I like it!"

"Did you say something about third place?" Steve grinned slyly as he claimed the spot.

"You asked for it, Rodgers. You're going doooooown. Oh yeah dooowwwwn!" he swatted Steve playfully. "All that soldier training ain't doing you any good here."

"It's funny you should say that when you're in last place."

Bruce snorted at the banter, comfortably holding second place until Steve launched a bomb at him. "Whoh…hey."

Meanwhile Clint's car sailed peacefully into first place and he kicked back, to lean against the couch with his arms behind his head, grinning cockily. "I pawn you all."

"I accuse thee of cheating" roared Thor. "Why else are we made to play your games, Clinton, if not to fall to defeat at your delight?"

"He has a point" Steve set down his controller as soon as his car made second place, closely followed by Bruce, then Tony. Natasha hadn't finished and Thor was more fixed on the accused cheater.

"Um, go again?" suggested Clint hopefully.

"With all the power of Thor, I will subdue you!" The Asgardian leapt upon the archer and began wrestling him into submission.

"Woot! Fight fight fight" chanted Tony, hopping up and down.

Natasha ran to grab a camera, leaving Bruce and Steve blinking in surprise.

"I'm not getting involved" said Bruce, going to start a new race. "One on one?"

Steve shot a nervous glance at the melee behind him and nodded.

**Fanboying part 1**

"Here, don't say I never get you anything." Tony tossed a book at the archer. "Read it, live it, Katniss."

"The Hunger Games?" Clint asked quizzically.

"You'll love it. The main character, alright maybe it's a girl but she's a star archer like you and…yeah. Shooting, death games…"

"So you think just because this one character can toss a few arrows, I'll like it?" Clint opened to the first page dubiously.

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. "Oh yeah." He smirked in satisfaction as he watched Clint flip to the next page and another and another… "My work here is done."

_[A few days later]_

"You've made a monster, Tony"

"Have I?" Tony innocently poured himself another espresso. "I only gave him book one."

"He made me read it."

"Oh. Like it?"

Natasha scoured the fridge shelves before pulling out her leftover egg salad. "Yes, I did."

"So what's your problem?"

"Steve, tell Tony what the problem is"

The captain looked up from reading the sports page, amused. "You mean the photograph collage he made in his room or the fanfiction he begged me to read?"

"Tasha!" Clint tore in, waving a document mailer. "It came. I can't believe it came. She actually sent it." He pulled out a signed photo of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss and held it for the others to see. "I wonder what the chances of meeting her are…"

Natasha forced a smile at him before turning to Tony with an 'I told you so' look.

**Fanboying part 2**

"What do they do in there?" Thor wondered, jostling the two assassins for the coveted window. "It is no experimentation."

"They've been staring at that laptop for two hours at least."

"What are…should I even ask?" Steve came up behind them, looking quizzically from one Avenger to another.

"You first" offered Clint, giving the captain a nudge. "I'm not going in there."

"You are a coward, Clinton" boomed Thor.

"You would be too if you knew what went on in there."

Natasha tapped her foot impatiently. "Somebody's got to find out what they're doing."

"We all go in," said Steve. He pushed open the doors to the lab and strode over to where Tony and Bruce hovered over a laptop laughing.

"Oh hey, guys, you should totally…"

"_My Little Pony_?" Steve might not have been well versed in contemporary culture but even he knew this wasn't normal. "Uhhh…"

"Oh man, you're such lost causes" smirked Clint.

Bruce paused the show and looked up guardedly. "It relaxes me" he said, the perfect of all excuses. They'd learned to give the scientist free reign in his likes. "Besides, the other guy likes it."

"Alright" conceded Natasha. "You, I get. What about you, Stark?"

"I…I…it's oddly calming. Besides, I'm Brucie's show-watching partner since you guys are all too goody-goody to appreciate it." Tony puffed up with pride. "We're the Brony Bros"

Bruce grinned and the two shared a fist bump.

Thor considered, eying the laptop warily. "This show of ponies, you enjoy it?"

Clint kept laughing hysterically until Tony and Bruce were both on him and manhandled him into a chair. "Hey! HEY! Hands off, you cretins! I won't watch… I WON'T!"

"You don't want me to get angry, Clint" growled Bruce, leering over the archer "and if you don't watch one episode, I'll get very very angry."

"Yeah, you'd all better get over here unless you want Big Green and Nasty to toss Katniss around like a beanbag," said Tony, grinning maniacally.

After the thirty minutes of ponies had expired, the second episode was begun with no chance of escape for the hostages.

"Wouldn't want to make Brucie mad and he will be if you leave now," Tony kept blackmailing. "Just a few more episodes, a few more and you all walk away alive from this."

For the first time in her life, Natasha Romanov begged for mercy.

**Spam**

"Boys, your assimilation into contemporary culture is not complete until you have tried the bane of all other canned food's existence." Tony pulled his hands out from his back and set the can on the table among them.

Steve read the label dubiously. "Spam?"

"What form of sustenance is this?" demanded Thor as Tony open it and began cutting it into slices. "It is nothing I have so far seen in Midguard."

"You thank me. Just try it."

Bruce wandered in to snag a sandwich. "Tony, I need your help stabilizing molecular convergence…what on earth?"

"This "spam" is not fit for consumption! Anthony Stark, you shall pay for this betrayal!" Thor threw the can at Tony and stomped out. He did grab a box of pop tarts before leaving though.

"HEY. I said you had to try it, I didn't say you had to like it."

Steve swallowed it all down, but not without making a face. "Uhhh, no thanks, Tony."

"Aw, c'mon, you too?" Tony threw up his hands in exasperation before storming out. "I will acculturate you both yet. JUST WATCH ME."

Bruce passively watched the show before helping himself to the whole can of spam.

**Cursed Realm**

"One hundred bucks if you go in first."

"Oh come on. For going down there?"

"You haven't been down there, Wonder Boy. The last manservant I sent down there to reset the electricity never came back up."

"…"

"What in the world are you boys doing?" Natasha came up, leaning against the side of the wall as she watched Steve and Tony peer down into the basement.

"Since when do you have servants, Tony?"

"When I was an idiot. I'm glad he's gone. Now I've got five roommates to delegate the work to." Tony stroked his chin in thought. "Fortunately he did get the power back on."

"Your point?"

"You go down, you never come up. A demonic spawn lives down there, huge snarling black thing—we call it Basement Cat for lack of a better name."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "He's trolling you, Steve. Get your star-spangled butt down there and fix the lights."

"Why me?"

"Dude, you'll learn to think twice about asking Bruce for anything and me trust Thor with electricity?" Tony made a slashing motion across his throat. "Stark Towers wouldn't stand a chance."

"Clint and I have business together" finished Natasha smugly.

"So basically I'm the easiest one to manipulate? Yeah, I get it!" Steve forged ahead down the stairs, flash-light in hand. "Basement cat my…"

An inhumane scream floated up the stairs and Steve was running back up for all it was worth. "You were right! I saw it! Huge, black, angry!" The cry came again, followed by a creak on the stairs. Steve yelped and was gone in an instant.

"You're evil, Tony" said Natasha, punching his shoulder.

Tony cackled and gave Bruce the thumbs-up as the scientist pulled off his costume. "Steve won't go down there for months."

"That extra equipment I wanted for the lab?"

"Yours, Brucie. _Yours_."

**Movie Night**

"Pizza!" called Bruce, carrying the four large boxes into the recreation room where Thor and Tony were setting some blankets on the floor for an impromptu picnic. Another Midgard tradition that Steve and Thor needed to become associated with. The rest of the Avengers were crowded around Tony's extensive DVD collection.

"I don't know what to pick," confessed Steve, dropping back. "And I'm sure there's at least one movie you'll say I have to see."

"Oh, there's dozens on your to-see list" replied Clint. He pulled a couple from the shelf. "I'm in an action mood tonight."

"No fluff?" Natasha looked disappointed. She had a taste in movies that often paralleled her own interests.

"Car chases" put in Tony, glancing up.

"A fight between good and evil?" suggested Steve.

"All movies have that. Well, just about all."

"A pity Hunger Games isn't out for Katniss yet" teased Tony, throwing one of the couch cushions at the archer. "I know you went to see the movie five times."

Clint scowled, tossing the pillow back and hitting Tony squarely in the chest. "I only went four times."

"Only four? Normal people see a movie once. You fanboy it, don't you?"

"Whatever. Least my fandom isn't geared toward six year old girls. Now that's sad."

Bruce glared in warning. "I thought we discussed the Brony issue. And settled it."

"The darkest beasts in the realm be on those ponies" muttered Thor, who hadn't cared at all for the fandom.

The scientist shuffled forward, pawing through the choices, before selecting one and setting the disk in. "This one's a classic, Steve. You've got to see this. It's one of my favorites." Bruce settled back, piling a place with pizza and smiling in reminiscence as the whip-wielding Harrison Ford made his first appearance.

They settled back and watched _Raiders of the Lost Ark_, attacking the pizza with divide and conquer. As the movie wore on, Steve turned his attention from the film and to his team. Tony, brash but reliant sprawled on the floor with a can of Jack Daniels in hand as he made some random commentary about the scene; Thor, enthroned on a beanbag chair with a pizza box close in hand and nodding his approval at Tony's explanation. Bruce, laid-back in the armchair with a contented smile then smirk on his face. Clint curled up on the couch using Natasha's lap as a pillow, grinning in bliss as Natasha ran her fingers through his hair. Natasha, laughing at a scene and whispering some soft words to Barton.

This wasn't just his team anymore, it was his _family_.


End file.
